The idea that senior Chinese leaders speak in subtle code is a bit of a myth. Wen Jiabao could not have been blunter on Wednesday when he told the world's financial elite that the crash was their fault, not his.

"To be frank the current crisis has inflicted a rather big impact on the Chinese economy," he told the Davos summit. "But China has acted in a responsible way."

Unlike others, he did not need to add. The Chinese leader is fond of lists – as well as five causes of the crash, he offered 10 solutions and 16 scientific plans – but his darts were sharp and they hit their target. The crisis, he said, was caused by the "inappropriate macro-economies of some countries" – an unsustainable model of development that depended on low savings and high consumption.

The problem was "a lack of self-discipline", a heady pursuit of profit, bad regulation and a distorted understanding of risk. Does that sound familiar? He was too polite to name names, but he meant the US and, by association, Britain.

Dressed in a plain white shirt, tinted steel-rimmed glasses and a striped burgundy tie, he did not look like a man who commands 1.3 billion people. But he spoke with the confidence of someone who thinks his country has got things right, while others have got them terribly wrong.

What was striking was his lack of enthusiasm for the new Obama administration. China got on rather well with President Bush. It is not so sure about his successor. The premier offered him token congratulations. But he was more expansive about the threat to world trade that might come from a protectionist administration in Washington.

"Political leaders must be forward-looking … responsive to the entire world community as well as their own countries," he said. That jibe follows America's call for China to revalue its currency, to help US exporters.

He also proposed what he called "a new world order". "Thanks to our own right judgment of the situation, our economy remains on the fast track to development," he said. Meeting next year's target of 8% growth would be tough. But the Chinese leader claimed to have detected his own version of "green shoots" in the last month – bamboo ones, presumably.

He ended on an unconsciously absurd note, quoting almost word for word Peter Seller's wonderful character Chauncey Gardner from the film Being There. "The harsh winter will soon be gone and spring will be around the corner."